Sun, 25 Aug 2019 08:24:38 -0700WeeblySat, 03 Feb 2018 06:33:11 GMThttp://www.roberthazelton.com/politics/stop-pretending-to-be-christianIf you don't think people deserve medical care, if you feel like they need to prove something to you to survive (like they're working, not doing drugs or whatever), if you think making people jump through hoops to get Medicaid or food, then just stop pretending to be Christian. Don't pretend you care about unborn children, stop fighting abortion, stop talking about family values.

The truth is if any of the above are ever in debate, you're just too cowardly to come out and say poor people should die. You're too cowardly to suggest we open murder clinics to kill people rather than put them into life long debt for required treatments to save their lives. Ultimately, you're not Christian at all and you don't have an ounce of charity in your heart. Come out and be the ghouls you are.]]>Tue, 30 Jan 2018 04:50:55 GMThttp://www.roberthazelton.com/politics/misery-deserves-misery-apparentlyJust saw a thing where people are petitioning to allow SNAP benefits to be used for pet food. People, in their typical fashion, look at the surface and say FUCK THAT!

They are missing the point: people who want this aren't on SNAP for life. They went through some shit. They want to get out of it and need some help. So now, they've been through something so shitty they need to get some help EATING.

But rather than show some compassion, we're saying 'you can't afford pets so fuck off'. Never mind that someone might be able to make it out of the hole. You screw up, life tries to destroy you, just suffer more. Just because your sociopathic ass considers pets to be some kind of special effect, doesn't mean other people don't consider them to be family.

Those people who are telling folks to give up their pets are assholes and scum. Those who need this could make it through and maybe the only thing keeping them from hurting themselves or giving up is the small, fleeting joy their pet brings them in the morning. But conservative assholes don't care. They're cowards who are too afraid to say what they genuinely believe: if you can't afford to live, then you need to just die.]]>Wed, 13 Dec 2017 15:58:08 GMThttp://www.roberthazelton.com/politics/sanity-in-dosesRoy Moore loses by 1.5% of the vote. A democrat in a republican state. Good, the guy was a slime apparently. This judge has been accused of some pretty terrible things, enough for him to lose an election that likely would've been no problem had he not come to the table with scandal. However, we do know that the American conservative cares more about the unborn than they do about the people who are currently alive today. What do I mean?

Trump himself has a number of open accusations about his sexual misconduct. He's flaunted his misogynistic attitude throughout his life and defended it as 'locker talk'. The thing that makes me most concerned is reading the comments of average citizens defending this shit. They DEFEND Roy Moore. They DEFEND Trump. Today, after Roy Moore decided to be a douche and not concede, I read a bunch of comments from his supporters.

1) Someone stated that Doug Jones believes in killing babies, doesn't believe in building the wall and won't secure our country against illegal aliens. Nice of this person to recognize what is right and wrong.

2) Another person used people going to heaven as their defense of a position that once again called out democrats for not following the blind agenda of ending abortion and building a wall.

4) A WOMAN supporter of Roy Moore talked about abortion and put it down as the ONLY issue. The ONLY thing that mattered.

Abortion used to be the kind of situation that people were upset about and it made sense. Their concerns were founded on compassion. Now, it's like this obsession. They almost don't even seem to understand WHY they're so upset because they are supporting people that have tortured, abused, neglected or, through legal process, ruined the lives of people who would need them. If not them, then they have caused trouble for woman in the past--or sometimes men (how many times have we seen conservatives getting busted with their same sex partners lately?).

I'm saddened by the lack of sanity in our debates. Both sides are guilty of it to some degree but when someone has a blind obsession, it's over. The strangest comments come out of people and they don't give a crap who reads them, sees them or what they entail. This extends to all forms of conversation in our current situation. I'm getting my sanity in doses but most of the time, the measurement seems off.]]>Thu, 02 Nov 2017 22:10:09 GMThttp://www.roberthazelton.com/politics/vengeanceI am not necessarily against the death penalty but in the last few years, I learned a few things that made me turn away from it as a means of punishing criminals. Beyond the simple fact that killing a prisoner is little more than social vengeance, it doesn't say good things about our society as a whole. I can see an individual seeking vengeance for the loss of their loved one but society itself MUST be above the passions of a single person. In fact, society should be governed by compassion--not impulse.

I bring this up because I saw that the President is calling for the death penalty for the guy who performed the terror act with his car in New York. The president should not represent the impulses of people, but be the guiding hand--the leadership that drives us toward a better tomorrow. While he can, of course, have his own opinions and views, voicing them as the leader of our country takes away the honor of his office. His should be the high road, the moral ground of a nation. Not the notions of those reacting through pain and sorrow.

Vengeance does not help anyone. Nothing is learned by this conclusion except the fact that we handle our problems through violence. In some cases, yes, violence calls for violence but that should be in the situation where a prolonged event (such as a warlord rampaging through the countryside murdering civilians). When a man has been stopped and we have detained him from further violence, killing him is little more than a statement of failure. We have no other means for dealing with criminals than to visit death upon them.

We can speak of the practical side of this as well. The Death Penalty costs more than life incarceration. It's unnecessarily cruel as a person lingers for years waiting for their date for death. Even when it does happen, it's not in the slightest painless. So there's no humane way to look at it. Ultimately, we end up with a person who has been tortured with time to consider their end and the tax payers are left with the check after they are gone.

Do I find it outrageous what the person has done? Yes. Am I horrified and angry? Absolutely. Would I be the first one in line to pull the lever and give him the chair? No. I have no interest in being the instrument of another person's death, regardless of what they have done. I would have hoped that our society would find a way to elevate themselves above this type of behavior, to elevate to a position where we could look upon such a criminal and find some other means of dealing with their infraction.

​We are not there. We need to be.]]>Sun, 22 Oct 2017 21:08:24 GMThttp://www.roberthazelton.com/politics/if-its-everyone-maybe-its-notI don't personally buy into the Trump camp. He's a maniac, a man who happily calls people names and outwardly spurns other foreign leaders. I've heard these things from his mouth. They're recorded. When he said he spoke to the President of the US Virgin Islands, I heard that. When he went down and threw paper towels at the people of PR and that they 'loved it', I heard that. I've read his tweets. He's out of his mind.

But then I find comments from people where they actually say 'I think he's doing a great job getting help to people'. Or defending his horrible behavior and I start to wonder...is America just a nation of bullies, thin skins and assholes? You hear about other countries giving Americans a hard time when they visit or dreading them as tourists. Even when we had regal presidents who weren't clowns. So maybe we ARE terrible people and maybe Trump is what we deserve.]]>Sun, 15 Oct 2017 05:07:03 GMThttp://www.roberthazelton.com/politics/danger-dangerEdward R Murrow stated to his staff 'if none of us ever read a book that was 'dangerous', had a friend who was 'different' or joined an organization that advocated 'change', we would be just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants'. The earnest and defiant attitude of that newsman against a government determined to destroy free thought and speech is needed now more than ever. So many recent situations have come up that demand more people to champion this type of feeling, to become adversaries of governmental conformity, now is the time for us to prove we are a people who deserve to be free.

A Mississippi school district has pulled To Kill a Mockingbird from the curriculum because it makes people uncomfortable. History, novels that make people think or push them to challenge their beliefs, very likely WILL shove someone outside their zone of safety. This is WHY we teach. To make people think for themselves and to understand why something like this book was written. Do you have to agree with what you read? OF COURSE NOT. But you need to experience it so you can formulate an informed, thoughtful opinion.

​Another great example of total insanity comes from President Trump stating 'we are stopping cold the attack on Judeo-Christian values'. Well, he should. He hasn't lived one of those values in his entire life. Politicians in general have to cough while talking about this kind of thing. How many scandals do we have to hear about from conservatives in particular before their followers stop buying into their rubbish?

A quick internet search brought up 19 Republicans brought down by gay sex situations and had they not been screaming to ANYONE who would listen about how wrong homosexuality is, they wouldn't have been given any crap. Except that they were generally cheating on their wives too. This is the kind of Judeo-Christian value that will no longer be attacked: the right to be a hypocrite.

Today, we have people in power who are telling us not to think for ourselves. They want to protect firearms while removing health care. Their ultimate goal is to perpetuate and protect a couple of cycles that ultimately lead to them acquiring more and more wealth. They want to trash the environment if they don't destroy the world first with the child in power holding a the keys to a violent confrontation with a psycho half a world away.

Now is NOT the time to start restricting the things we are teaching our children. They cannot make these same mistakes again when they're in charge. They can't look back on this point in our history and think we made the right call electing a game show host to lead the country. They can't believe that hatred, bigotry and ignorance are more important than empathy, compassion and enlightenment.

If we are already lost, and I'm not saying we are, we can't be defeatist for the sake of those who will come after us. The next generation deserves the chance to grow up with the same opportunities as any of us. I hope, with all my heart, that we become sensible in the coming months and make some change. When a porn king like Larry Flynt is offering 10 million for dirt to impeach trump, the world's pretty dire.